About Y! Avatars

Nope, this is not today's DQ issue xDD. It's a whole different thing. As practice for Japanese, I've decided I'll at least try and sneak into some of Yahoo Japan's forums. I don't _produce_ nearly half as much as I read, and that's quite a problem. I know my teacher won't be exactly a big help there: sometimes I do ask myself why I'm paying her exactly, but, it sometimes has its perks, like free books or some resources I might not find on my own.

Anyhoo, Yahoo Japan's forums feature Avatars, which are basically dolls you wear with clothes picked from the site. Some -aha!- are premium content (ok, 60 yen is not much, but still... and the backgrounds are 240 yen!), some are not. Guess which ones I picked.

It's funny though how obvious some things are when you pronounce the katakana. Like, this short, slightly spiky haircut I picked, it was called "penkinguberiishooto". I blinked. Then again. Then I read it aloud. Of course: "Penking Very Short". Jeez. Like "kuroozetto". Closet. Well, duh.

You can pick every sort of complement and clothing, it's pretty funny. Under the "Toppusu" (Tops, of course) category, you'll find Suutsu (suits), T-Shatsu (T-shirts), Poro-Shatsu (polo shirts), vests, parkas, sweaters... oh and the T-shirts are also divided in categories depending on whether they show the belly or not (half-size or full-size, hansode, chousode). I'm right now looking at the "Botemasu" (Bottoms) section. There's chino pants, jeans, skirts...

Oh, there's Accesories, Jewellery, Pets, Shoes (Sneakers, Business Shoes, Boots, etc.) and you can even change the background. Some guy in the Top Dressers has a bleeping water bike behind him! Complete with sunset, sunglasses and all. It's... way too much.

Though I still can't understand why I can't wear my black Y! shirt under my green parka. Drat and double drat. Gah, all shops are premium content. Amazing, there's a horribly pink heart-filled background in there as well.

In short: all backgrounds which are actually usable ARE premium content. Nobody's gonna use a plain background and a plain floor. Nothing is better than that. Oh, there was a very interesting dicussion on why nothing was a thing (a thing that is the lack of things) and no thing is well, not a thing (but a way to say that a certain set of objects do not satisfy a certain predicate or condition). But that's not about Avatars.

Woof, it's already 2:28am. Time to go... playing OGame some more (Kami bless vacations!). It's a web-based space exploration game some of my classmates (and fellow Naruto fans) told me about. www.ogame.com.es for the Spanish version, but I'm sure they have others: the server itself is German-based.

Still haven't got a stupid Colonizer. My "empire" still consists of ONE planet.

More Dragon Quest

Well, the last exam is getting near... not much time left. So, more DQ VI today. Turns out the golden rule for this game is: Talk With Everyone. Yes, everyone. That old lady or that guy with glasses might have the clue you need to go on. As ordinary and boring as they may look.

Like today. I'd just arrived to Leylock from San Marino (the port I was stuck in) after watching a small love story and talking to the other Hassan's parents. Till I did that, the sailors wouldn't stop preparing the ship and letting me board, when I just asked myself "what do I do now?".

Well... after much walking here and there, I finally find someone who says "Hey, you look a lot like the prince! Are you him?". If you say Yes, he'll be surprised for a sec, then say "Nah, you're not him... but I'm sure you'll fool everyone if you had better clothes!".

Guess where those clothes are. Yes, right in the armor shop, under the name "Nobleman's Clothes" (Kizoku no Fuku). You buy them, and let Muraki (main char) equip them. Then off you go waltzing into the castle. Until the chancellor (I think), Genban, notices you're a fake by asking you the name of the sister who died when the prince was little. (It's impossible to get it right; tried it, trust me xD). Then you get kicked out.

After some wandering (AGAIN), I found out the guy who hung out at the Inn wasn't there anymore, but an elderly man, who tells for free the latest rumors. One of then is about the Rah (Ra? Lah?) Mirror. Seems the key for it is in a city near some waterfalls, off to the west.

Go to the west, find a sign, it's southeast from there. Keep going on and you'll see first a cave (you can't do a thing there; there's just an old man talking about broken dreams), and then the city. Oh yes, all is fine and dandy. And it's Wandering Time (TM) again! Which promptly ends after a) finding out the inn has no spare rooms to stay in and b) talking to a very grumpy Geena (Jiina... maybe Xena? Heehee...), an old lady who is living in the basement of the church.

Apparently, she went with a guy into the cave looking for some treasure, then she came out alone. Passed the rest of her days living in the church. When you wake up... you're in the past! Just to watch the water go blood red. Some guy with glasses will tell you what's happening.

Going to the cave source of the water, you'll see Geena (well, a barely clad blonde girl, instead of an old lady) cleaning her weapon, blabbing something about how she killed him herself (Iria, her lover). Go downstairs three times, find a guy with Dragoon-ish armor fighting, beat a boss, and then go back. Turns out he was Iria.

By the way, the boss was a piece of cake. Problem was, he confused Hassan and I didn't know what to use to cure Confusion. Gah. Good thing Mireya just got a really good ice spell in the last levelup (30+ damage per turn, not bad!).

And he goes off with the Mirror Key and Geena, needed to enter the Moon Mirror Tower. At least he's grateful and gives you some ring of his. Go back to the church's basement, and sleep again. Oh, look, back to the present. Geena talks about how your party appeared in her dreams and saved her from them (y'know, the "the-blood-won't-disappear" thing), and Iria (now an old man) enters the room. Happy meeting, and you're now the rightful owner of the key.

That's it for today. Oh, hey, Blogger's got piccies of their own now! Let me try, let me try... (wonder if it does the conversion from ZSNES' BMP pics itself?)

Boomerangs rock my world.

Guess you don't know the Dragon Quest series. Nope, surely you don't. There was an anime for it, but it wasn't too good. Kinda Dragon Ball-ish style for the art. It was called The Adventures of somethingsomething, can't remember really.

Well, the DQ series was (till Enix went broke) Final Fantasy's rival series. Quite good RPGs, with a rather different feel to them. Harder, in my opinion. I did play Dragon Quest V, which had contributions from Akira Toriyama (yep, he designed the Chrono Trigger characters as well...) himself, back a few years ago, because some kind soul had translated it. No such luck with DQ VI, though. Glad I'm studying Japanese.

It all begins with some errand to buy a wooden crown (well, something like that) for your small middle-of-nowhere town's yearly festival. You have to go down the mountain (get killed a few times because all you have is a ing stick, and a lousy char), get to Sienna, then find out the wood crafter (sp?) is gone to find some good materials for this year's crown.

Of course, you do have some money, namely from selling this year's production over at Sienna. The people there will give you 350G, tops. Wisely spent on armor, weapons and all that. Oh, who needs a crown anyway? :grin:

Go north, and you'll find the wood crafter hanging on to the edge of a cliff for his life. Save him, and then you go down in his place xD. Don't worry, you're not dead. You're just... a ghost? A ghost in a parallel world to yours (oh ho, Chrono Cross here?). Luckily, you find out there's a 'dangerous' well north of the town you fall next to. Which, also luckily, brings you back to this world.

After returning to Sienna, surprising the woodcrafter and finally getting the stupid crown, go back up the mountain for the festival. Oh yes, your sister happens to be the local beauty and so is chosen to be the festival's angel, i.e. messenger from the gods. The usual ceremony is interrupted by what appears a real manifestation of the goddess through your sis, which basically tells you to go and try to talk to the king about some legend. (Forgot the exact name... you know, things like Zoamelgustar from Slayers are hard to remember!)

Then... off to the Big City. With a castle, and... oh, but you need to be a soldier. There's a quest for that... oops, you didn't win that one. Well, Hassan, the winner, will help ya catch some huge horse to help an old man who can't use his carriage any more. The king is so impressed, he makes you a soldier as well. Which means looking for some mystical mirror which is supposed to reveal the whereabouts of Mudoh, the evil sorcerer king.

Which means going through the north gates of the king's territory and, after passing by a nunnery, reaching a dwarf's house, who tells you of a story about an ancient temple (not without letting Hassan show off his l33t carpenter skills - that was weird!) to the east. But first, of course, you have to locate the secret entrance near the sand to the cave so you can cross the river. Do so, then after getting to the other side, well.. keep going east till you see a Big Hole, just like the first you fell in.

Oh yes, you do have to fall in. And Hassan's up for the surprise. After you reach the city, you witness a love story between the son of the mayor and a maid. Touching. Well, after that, you may meet Mireiya (she appeared just today, that's why I remember her name), who is the first from this parallel world to actually be able to see you.

Well... that's mostly everything. Now Mireiya and her grandmother have asked Hassan and Muraki (made up the name... guess where it's from!) to get some Drops from a particular shrine, deep in a cave. I'm stuck there right now. Darned Hell Hornets with their paralyzing attacks. Killed me twice or so.

Yep, it's complicated. Dragon Quest games are... very complicated, VERY long. But it's better than the usual "go grab the 5 crystals, then the 3 gems, then OH, BIG BOSS" pattern. Zelda :ug: is like that, and when you stop finding new stuff all the time, gets boring big time.

And.. it's sometimes too realistic. Annoyingly so. Every character can only use in battle 'his' or 'her' items. That is, you just don't have an inventory everyone can use, oh no, like in the FF games. Everyone's got their own inventory, with only 10-12 items, and then there's a big sack for general use, which CAN'T be used in battle.

Can you imagine how annoying it is to find you forgot to pack Medicinal Herbs in Hassan's inventory right in the middle of battle?

Whoo.. enough typing for today. Gotta study tomorrow anyway xDD.

Mata kondo ne!

Screenshots, Take Two.

Well, Buzznet came back in time!

Here's all the screenshots.

Gatoh: Beaten up and turned into a happy alien which disappears in a puff of logic. Sorry, Nethack joke.

Gatoh: "Heh... it's beautiful... pure white... the color of a heart which doesn't doubt...". See, people are only affected by Sappy Shojo Speech when they've been hit on the head too many times. Here, Gatoh's the next victim.

Minto: BOOT TO THE HEAD! (that's basically her attack, anyway: it's a drop-kick)


The plane they all came in. Yes, Ryou's from a rich family. Has no parents though: lost them to some Chimera Anima attack, it seems.


Ringo and her brother saying goodbye. Here, Ichigo's talking about all they did in the island (helping the animals and other stuff).


The outfit selection screen.


And the result: can't believe Ichigo can walk with it on. Eek. No wonder she can hit so hard xDD.

There. Done.

Well, actually, this is a week late, but hey, I'm a busy man. XDD

Finished Tokyo Mew Mew. Yeah, the ending is a mix between Captain Planet and sappy shôjo stuff: the alien is oh so sorry, he's amazed by the Power of Friendship, and then there's an ecologist rant. Geez, and I thought Sailor Moon was as sappy as you could get.

Here's a few shots... not. Buzznet is down at the moment. Geez.

Gatoh, as a "final" boss... what a disappointment. Too easy. Just go wild on him with everything you've got, like the Ribbon Strawberry Trinity, a 3-person tech, or THE tech: can't remember it's name, but it's a 5-person tech which uses up 2 hearts' worth of Yaruki from everyone (Fighting Spirit, here Courage), attack power 200+ and heals. It's the Boss Smashing tech xDD, specially when you know he's coming and load everyone's Yaruki up with items.

It's even more disappointing after using Provoke on him a few times and evading his attacks 70% of the time. -_-

On a side note, there's a small feature: you can make "photographs" of your characters. It's very simple: if you go to a R-2000 comp (those which let you save and look up animal info) and press the Confirm button, a menu will appear. There's an option for making photographs (it had 'shashin' in it, but I forgot the rest).

When you select it, a new screen will appear asking you what style of clothes will the girls wear: traditional (yukatas - summer kimonos), their daily wear or explorer style. Ichigo gets extra outfits, like the Princess outfit (which you can get from talking with Ryou - go imagine WHY he had that outfit in the first place!). As you can guess, it's got more laces than any fashion sense would allow. I'll show you pics as soon as I can.

After you finish the game, a new mode will appear, à la Chrono Trigger: the Exploration Mode (Tansaku Moodo). Basically, you can walk freely around the whole island using your final characters, as Kish seems to have unleashed havoc yet again on the 6th day of the visit (you get rid of Gatoh on the night of the 5th). Bonus stuff appears, but I don't quite feel like walking over the island again. There's only TWO types of maps: snow/ice maps and forests. Guh. You basically Gotta Catch 'Em All (heehee): one of each species of animal in the island.

In short: I give this game a 7 out of 10. It's playable, it's nice for studying Jap, and it's funny, what with all the laces and silly things. And it has great moments like the lines said in some combos:

Retasu (Ms. No-Guts) and Zakuro (Ms. Shinto-Priest-And-Model):
- Let's go after them, Retasu!
- Who me?
- Who else, you twit?
- Oh... let's do it, then!

Really. And Ringo... even her sprite looks... like she's Not There when she's attacking. xDD And you'd have to listen to her voice.

However, the battles become... SLUGGY in the end of the game. And you DO get tired of getting interrupted in battle because of all the voices. The maps are a tad boring and there's not much variety.

As an anime-based game, it's good, though. Definitely better than the MKR RPG (translated by.. someone?), but not as good as the SM RPG (translated by DeJap and available on All Your Emulators!).

Gotta think of what I'm going to play next... should be in Jap as well. Maybe FF4. Yeah, probably. Jobu Shistemu (Job System... you'd think they would use JAP WORDS, like Shokugyou Seido or something!) ahead!